Trump’s Present Charges Raise Questions about His Past
The only image less credible than protestors storming the US Capitol on January 6 was former president Donald Trump’s arrival in Washington, D.C. to face charges for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
When the riot finally subsided, it appeared that the United States had surmounted the worst of the virus and that, after being exposed to the worst of Mr. Trump’s election-related falsehoods and futile attempts to remain in office, the country would develop an immunity to him.
Nonetheless, 139 Republicans in the House of Representatives and eight Republicans in the Senate contested the results of the 2020 presidential election. In fact, according to the most recent indictment, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called Mr. Trump after the disturbance and asked him to withdraw his objections and allow the election results to be certified, but Mr. Trump refused.
The investigation of the January 6 committee also disclosed that the day after the attempted coup, Mr. Trump was unable to state “the election is over” and instead said, “I just wanna say ‘Congress has certified the results’ without saying ’the election is over’, okay?”
The current allegations brought against the former president by Special Counsel Jack Smith and detailed in the indictment are arguably the most grave. While the charges he faces in New York detail his efforts to obfuscate the truth through sleazy political maneuvering and the charges regarding classified documents allege utter carelessness and vanity, the charges he faced this week in Washington demonstrate his efforts to violate the presidential oath in order to maintain power for himself.
Mr. Trump could very well escape these allegations. Throughout his career as an entrepreneur, celebrity, candidate, and elected official, he has discovered methods to manipulate the law in his favor. Alternatively, he could face prison time for all of the charges in the three distinct cases, in addition to a possible indictment from the Fulton County District Attorney for attempting to overturn Georgia’s election results.
It would be unfeasible to undo Mr. Trump’s fundamental reshaping of the Republican Party and the nation as a whole, even if he were to serve time in prison or confront some form of accountability.
As Mr. Trump arrived in Washington for his arraignment, CNN released a poll that exemplified the extent to which Trumpism has taken over the country. The survey revealed that 69% of Republicans and Americans who lean Republican believe that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected.
Read Also: Fox News Reacts Strongly to Donald Trump’s Arraignment, Cries ‘Political War Crimes’
Rising Faith in Election Fraud Claims Alters GOP Landscape in Congress
Republican voters’ conviction that the 2020 election was rigged and that Mr. Trump was persecuted has become an article of faith. In the meantime, Republicans who voted to certify the election results have begun to leave Congress, leaving only two House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump. Many of them have been replaced by Republicans who echo the former president’s claims that the election was hijacked, or will be replaced in the future.
In fact, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who voted to convict Mr. Trump for his role in the January 6 disturbance, was one of the few Republicans to state that the indictment proved Mr. Trump “played a key role in instigating the riot.” And the only reason she is able to do so is because she just won reelection in a state with ranked-choice voting, meaning she does not have to worry about a right-wing primary challenge like other Republicans do.
In contrast, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who previously stated that Mr. Trump was responsible for the disturbance, has defended the former president throughout all of his legal troubles.
In fact, the House Republican majority has been little more than Mr. Trump’s legal defense team, attempting to draw moral equivalence between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden’s alleged crimes and establishing a special subcommittee to investigate the alleged “weaponisation” of the federal government in response to its investigations of Mr. Trump.
Read Also: Politics as a Defense Tactic: The Question of Trump’s Presidential Run
Source: Independent
